


Sweetest Dreams

by Golbez



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, POV Second Person, insomnia fueled writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-12
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-14 02:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golbez/pseuds/Golbez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Golbez has been watching Kain for most of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweetest Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> I first wrote this a few months ago in, as usual, a bout of insomnia. In any case, I first posted this to tumblr, but I've since edited it and added a few things here and there.

The first time you meet Kain Highwind, you are twenty-two winters old and he is but a boy of thirteen.

It is your first visit to Baron in many, many years, and you find yourself wandering about the streets, your curiosity overwhelming you. No doubt your chaperone is at his wit's end by now, but you're not alone. You're never alone.

The wind rustles past you. You stay silent, even as you start following the direction of the breeze, watching for signs of its path. Pieces of cloth and feathers in the air, skirts lifting, hair being tousled by invisible hands. Men, women, and children move about past you, ignoring you. It's a busy day at the market, after all. You are just another face in the crowd now, and the thought that none of these...these _fools_ know your name stirs a certain sort of fury in you.

A child - you glimpse silver hair, not unlike yours - runs past you, when you turn, another slams straight into you.

"Watch it!" The boy is defiant, full of life and energy. He glares up at you with bright blue eyes even as he helps himself up, though he certainly takes a moment to fix his golden hair. 

"Um, sorry about that. Sir." It is the other boy, reappearing by your side, silver hair a complete mess. "Kain doesn't ever watch where he's going. He's kind of dumb like that."

"Shut it," snaps the first. Kain, you suppose. Then he looks right up at you. "Don't listen to him."

You would have said something, and you like to think you're rather good at saying things, but the next thing you know the two are off, racing into the crowd of people without another word.

"I see those two are causing trouble again." it's an elderly woman, sitting at a stall nearby, smiling at you.

"They greet visitors to this kingdom in a rather unusual way," you say.

She laughs. "I suppose they do."

"They cause trouble often then?"

"Oh yes," she says, the laughter never leaving her eyes. "Troublemakers, those two. Not a day goes by without some excitement involving the young princes of Baron."

Princes? You don't remember ever hearing of these princes in your lessons. Did you miss something? You certainly hope not.

Your confusion must have been clear on your face, for the woman quickly adds, "Oh, neither are related to the King. Young Cecil is adopted."

"And Kain?"

She gives you a quiet, bitter smile. "Taken in out of pity and in the name of his father, I'm afraid. He would not have anything if his father had not been a great Dragoon. The greatest, in fact--a Highwind."

You narrow your eyes at her words, mulling them over. Such circumstances for a child...you think you could have use for this Kain.

You thank her and continue making your way to your chaperone.

The wind rustles past.

***

You spend a few years watching him, following him, utilizing the shadows you had newly learned to manipulate. The other boy - Cecil - had been right. Kain was certainly not the smartest kind, and many times you slipped, made a mistake somewhere, but not once did he notice you. He was too busy chasing after some girl. A white Mage trainee.

It doesn't matter, you suppose. You _don't_ need someone so smart as to question your every move.

You also come to learn so much about him in those years. 

He is never good enough. This is the first you learn of him. Everything he does is nothing compared to Cecil's work. He is second to Cecil. You are second to no one, but nothing you do pleases Zemus. Nothing you do is strong enough, fast enough, powerful enough. Your whole life has been a race to be the best. It would have been easier if you'd had someone other than yourself to compete with.

He has a dragon, too. Well, a Wyvern, and it is an old one, but Kain visits it every week and speaks to it like you do with Shadow, and he does this quietly, as though afraid others would find him and call him mad. You want to approach him at those times and tell him you understand what it is to have no one but a dragon for a friend.

He too watches someone. He too, dreams of someone. He too, wants to hold and touch and love someone. He has his chance. He has false friends and false lovers and over the years you watch as he grows into a handsome young man. You watch as he finds bliss with the white Mage girl, you watch as as he holds and touches and loves her. You watch when he loses her, when he becomes second to Cecil once more.

You are there the night he tries to drown himself in mead and whores and anything to dull the pain. He won't remember how you sat by him and listen. All he'll get out of that night is a growing hatred for Cecil, spurred by words he will not remember thinking, as though someone else had planted those thoughts in him.

And all this time you work and train and learn and practice. And you begin your game. You start claiming men and women in the ranks of nobility as your pawns. You pit them against each other, against their King. You replace the servants in the castle with your own men and women. You manipulate and deceive, working words and weaving stories. 

Rubicante is hardly fond of your methods and he is often vocal about it, but you are efficient and all the pieces are falling into place, and he simply can't say much about it.

And you continue to watch Kain.

***

He is twenty and you are twenty-nine when you finally meet again. Your plans have been set into motion. The Water Crystal is yours, the nobility of Baron has been cowed to your will, the Red Wings are in your hands. Yet, somehow, Cagnazzo manages to mess up, manages to send Kain out on a suicide mission with the Dark Knight. Manages to almost kill him.

You personally drag Kain out of the rubble of Mist.

His recovery is quick, and you waste no time in breaking him.

Within days, he is at your mercy. You claim his mind, taking care to fill his thoughts with you, and nothing but you. You are his master, and he will do what you wish him to.

You claim his body next, pinning him to a wall and taking what you'd always wanted. He was yours now, after all. 

He fights, and that only makes it better.

And the days pass, and you claim another crystal. Kain, who had doubted his king before, now fights at your side. You let him have his freedom within the walls of both Baron and Zot. You let Barbariccia toy with him, let Cagnazzo torment him. Still, he follows you, still, he pleases you when you demand it. 

He is yours. Still you could be happier.

The woman changes everything.

You almost kill Kain in rage, for allowing himself to falter, for allowing a _woman_ to distract him. He defied you, he disobeyed you. You make sure he knows how worthless he is, how much of a failure he is. How he is not good enough, how he will never be good enough. You beat him and rip his armor and shatter what's left of him, and just as you're ready to take what he owes you, Barbariccia appears and pleads for him.

She calms you as she has done many times before, and you spare Kain's body, but you don't spare his name. You ensure the news spreads, that all of Baron knows that Kain Highwind failed his commander.

And Kain takes it upon himself to guard the woman, to "ensure she doesn't escape". You know better. Still, you let him. You let him think he is still free to choose what he wants despite the shame to his name, that this is a chance for him to redeem himself. Besides, he still belongs to you. He can do nothing but to return to you when he discovers how much she despises him.

She doesn't despise him.

You settle for old tactics, ensnaring Kain in your net once more. But you are too late. He cares for her too much. In a fit of rage, you almost kill her right before his eyes. A second punishment.

Almost. The swirl of water and ice stops you just before you land the killing blow. Cagnazzo, here to remind you that you need her. And you realize you do. You need her, to negotiate and to keep Kain on a leash.

You don't kill her, but you ensure she suffers.

***

Kain does nothing when you almost kill Cecil.

You stay your own hand this time.

Cecil is like a ghost from your past.

***

You lose him, eventually. In those final days before your near triumph, before your plan comes to its full fruition, you lose him.

You don't quite understand how. When he returned to you with the dark crystals, you rewarded him, you showed him what he missed. You held and touched and loved him.

In those final days, before the Giant, before the final triumph, you lose him. He becomes distant from you. He stops seeking your company. He no longer fights. Everything is wrong with him. Everything isn't enough for him. You think Kain has simply grown tired.

You let him go.

The next you see him, he is there with Cecil, just like when you first met him.

You think he and your brother make quite the troublemaking pair.

***

You don't say goodbye to him.

He watched you the whole time, waited for you to turn to him from Cecil. Waited for you to say _something_ to him. Instead you leave a letter for him, pressed into Cecil's hands as quietly as possible. A letter you wrote on the way to fight Zemus.

You dream of him sometimes, when you slumber, amidst dreams of the Lunarian homeworld, of your lost childhood, of the Archfiends who watched you, of a happier life with Cecil.

The dreams of Kain are the sweetest of your dreams.

***

He is thirty-eight, you are forty-seven.

"I never thought I would see you again," he tells you as he approaches, holy armor glittering in the firelight.

You chuckle and pat the spot beside you. "It is good to see you again, Kain."


End file.
